Ashley Montagu quotes (1965)

From the June 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Race” Mixing

Those who deliver themselves of unfavorable judgments concerning “race crossing” are merely expressing their prejudices. . . . The truth seems to be that far from being deleterious to the resulting off-spring and the generations following them, interbreeding between different ethnic groups is from the biological and every other standpoint highly advantageous to mankind.. . . Indeed, if there were any truth in the suggestion that hybridization results in degeneration or decadence man should have died out long ago or else sunk to the level of a deformed idiot, for he is one of the most highly hybridized creatures on earth.

From “Man's Most Dangerous Myth” (Ashley Montagu).

“Race” and “Blood”

Scientists have for many years attempted to discover whether or not any differences exist in the blood of different peoples, but the results of such investigations have always been the same—no difference has been discovered, except in the statistical distribution of the traits which all human beings possess in common. In short, it cannot be too emphatically or too often repeated that in every respect the blood of all human groups is the same, varying only in the frequency with which certain of its chemical components are encountered in different populations. This similarity cuts across all lines of caste, class, group, nation, and ethnic group.

From “Man's Most Dangerous Myth” (Ashley Montagu).